@panzade,
You see, this is the sort of thing which makes a joke out of this pathetic thread--this comic book version of history. France did not "pillage" the far East. Indo-China was their only colonial effort in the region, and they did not engage in wholesale slaughter or plundering, they simply took over and told the people what they wanted them to grow (chiefly rubber) for their new masters.
Of all the so-called great powers, France showed more restraint than any other nations, except for the Germans, who came late to the overseas colony game. Pre-revolutionary, royalist France laid a very light hand on the native populations. When Cartier came to the valley of the St. Laurant in the 1530s, he described the culture and recorded the language of the people living there. Based on that information, 19th century linguists and ethnologists came to the conclusion that the people living there were Huron-Iroquois (chiefly based on the language). In the next three generations, that part of what we call Canada was overrun by Algonquian speakers, and a reasonable inference which can be taken is that they ran out the Iroquois simply by virtue of greater numbers. More on that in a moment.
In 1562, a colony was established on Parris Island (as it is now known) near Hilton Head in what is now South Carolina. Ribault, who had founded the colony, sailed back to France, but was delayed because of strife between the Protestant and Catholics in France. The colonists, despairing of a rescue, built a small sloop and sailed back to France. In 1564, Ribault tried again, and established a colony at Cape Canaveral in what is now Florida. Fort Caroline, as it was called, enjoyed good relations with the local people, the hallmark of royal policy for the colonies. However, the Spanish didn't like the French colonizing what they considered their land, and were even more incensed that the colonists were Protestants. A Spanish officer named Núñez set out to destroy the colonists. In appalling incident which i won't describe in detail here, Núñez took Fort Caroline and destroyed most (but not all) of the colonists. Many of them he convinced to surrender, the bound their hands and executed them. We know this not only because of the reports of the survivors, but because Núñez produced a detailed account--he was proud of what he had done, because those French were "heretics."
Later, French Protestants settled what is now known as Key West--but the Spanish drove them out of there, too. Finally, French Protestants estalished themselves on the west end of the island of Hispaniola, in what is now called Haiti. Once again, because they were Protestants, the Spanish from Santo Domingo (on the other end of the island) hunted them down. Conceited young bucks, calling themselves the
lanceros, would ride them down in the forest. The French got on well with the natives there, too. It was from them that they learned how to smoke meat on green wood frames, which meat they would sell to ships calling at Tortuga to buy supplies. The French rendered the Indian name for the green wood frames
boucan, which is the origin of the word buccaneer. So many of the French survivors of the attacks of the
lanceros took to piracy if they survived that buccaneer came to be cognate for pirate. The island or Tortuga, of the northwest coast of the main island, became a center for piracy, and the royal governor looked the other way, because the proceeds were too lucrative to ignore.
In 1608, Samuel de Champlain returned to the river Cartier had explored in the 1530s, and there established the colony of New France. He quickly established good relations with the dominant Algoquian-speaking tribe, the Ottawa. Apparently, ever since being driven out of the St. Laurant valley, the Iroquois expressed their displeasure by raiding into the river valley each year. In 1608, as soon as the Ottawa identified the Iroquois expedition, they went to Champlain for help. With a few of his men, he joined their war party, and their fire arms completely dismayed the Iroquois--the Ottawa then fell on their party and wreaked a great slaughter on them. The Iroquois never forgave the French. For 150 years they tried to destroy the French. They twice invaded New France, on one occasion staying there for almost two years before their logistics failed them. The early French settlers were nothing is not hardy, though, and they hung on.
With their military expeditions a failure, the Iroquois decided to practice economic warfare--they would attack the French fur trade. To accomplish that end, they began to exterminate or attempt to exterminate, the tribes west of New France. According to the Jesuits, they killed off about 70% of the Hurons, who were their linguistic and cultural brothers. They completely exterminated one sept know as the Cat People. We don't know if they were Hurons or Algonquians, because they were wiped out before the Jesuits had sent a mission there. They next turned on the Meswaki--called the Outagamie by the French, and the Fox Indians by the later English speakers. The Meswaki fought them to a standstill, with great loss on both sides. The Iroquois then began burning down the forests around their villages, and the Meswaki eventually evacuated Michigan and moved to what is now Wisconsin. So much for that old hippy happy horseshit about Indians living in harmony with their red brothers and the environment.
In 1676, Henri de Tonti was travelling up the river we call the Illinois. He stopped at what is now known as Starved Rock, where the Illiniwek (and hence, Illinois in French) were wintering. After a few days, he and his few companions crossed the river. Old hands in the forests by then, they didn't just blunder along. They discovered a large Iroquois war party, which Tonti estimated at 200o, and quietly withdrew. The hurried back to Starved Rock to warn the Illiniwek, and convinced them (much agains their better judgment) to join them in a surprise attack on the Iroquois, while the old men, the women and children dug up all of the winter supplies and hurried south along the river. The attack on the Iroquois, with Tonti's men and their firearms, was sufficient to give the Illiniwek the chance to escape. The Iroquois rallied and went to Starved Rock, where they dug up the graves of the Illiniwek in frustrated rage. They then recrossed the river, and began marching south. I suspect they didn't know the geography of the area and thought they could get ahead of the Illiniwek and recross at any bend of the river which turned east. Fortunately for the Illiniwek, the Illinois River only runs south or west. Reaching the Mississippi, near present day St. Louis, the Illiniwek crossed the great river--all except for the Tamaroa sept. The Iroquois crossed in the night, and fell on the Tamaroa, killing almost everyone except for a handful of young men who made it across the Mississippi. The Iroquois were not good on the water, and the Mississippi proved an adequate barrier to protect the Illiniwek. The few Tamaroa survivors were taken into other septs--sot the Tamaroa had been effectively exterminated.
For all of that narrative, see the seven volume history of the French in North America by the great American historian, Francis Parkman.
Sadly, the French in the Caribbean succumbed to the disease of slavery. The native populations had already been eliminated by white man's diseases and the predation of the Caribs. In India, they continued their policy of getting along with the native populations, but they backed the wrong horse. They allied themselves to the Muslim ruling classes, who lorded it over huge populations of Hindus. Unlike the English, though, the French went on no wars of conquest there.
The revolution and Napoleon almost destroyed the French overseas empires. But nothing loath, the restored monarcy and later the Second Empire and the subsequent republics enthusiastically went out to conquer new colonies. The story of the conquest of Algeria is an ugly one. The new colonies set up in west Africa, though, were relatively benign--the local rules saw the advantages of allying themselves to a powerful European nation, and the French record was not bad The French remain good friends, and when necessary, reliable military allies of their former colonies in Africa.
After the fall of the Second Empire, the French developed this rather bizarre attitude. While conquering new colonies, the people France embraced the idea of
la mission civilisatrice. That meant that little brown babies and little yellow babies were educated exactly as were the little white babies in France. Ho Chi Mihn was educated in Paris, where he joined the communist party. A great many of the leaders of former French colonies were educated in France, because the people of France embraced (if perhaps not enthusiastically) the people of their empire.
This thread of Frank's is simple-minded, chauvinistic horseshit. Don't help him to perpetrate this ****, Pan.
